I am an anthropologist and historian of truth-making practices in (some of) the sciences, primarily genomics and air pollution research, but also including the science of signs, semiotics. My essay here makes occasional reference, including in its title, to the productive overlaps, borrowings, and cross-talk that have taken place in both the life sciences and the sign sciences, and their collusion in biosemiotics. The images traverse the scales my scientists work on and between, planes of immanence from the molecular to the planetary where collective work happens. Friendship with the sciences is both motto and method; I want my writing to increase interest in and care for the sciences, and their much-needed truths. Considering how much criticism (some of) the sciences also merit, this can be a challenge sometimes, but I consider it an essential part of an ethnographic responsibility.
I am an anthropologist and historian of truth-making practices in (some of) the sciences, primarily genomics and air pollution research, but also including the science of signs, semiotics. My essay here makes occasional reference, including in its title, to the productive overlaps, borrowings, and cross-talk that have taken place in both the life sciences and the sign sciences, and their collusion in biosemiotics. The images traverse the scales my scientists work on and between, planes of immanence from the molecular to the planetary where collective work happens. Friendship with the sciences is both motto and method; I want my writing to increase interest in and care for the sciences, and their much-needed truths. Considering how much criticism (some of) the sciences also merit, this can be a challenge sometimes, but I consider it an essential part of an ethnographic responsibility.